Nigerian 419 Scam Spam Letters

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This is our collection of Nigerian 419 scam spam letters. This fraud has been around for decades, and, before widespread Internet use, it mainly operated through snail-mail letters (which are occasionally still used.) It has also appeared in broadcast "spam" fax messages.

The SetUp: You receive an email (or sometimes a snail-mail letter, or a fax.) Traditionally, it will claim to be from Nigeria, but, in recent years, has spread to other countries in Africa, Asia, and elsewhere. There is an often desperate-sounding plea. Usually, someone has died, and has left a large amount of unclaimed money in a bank (e.g. one hundred million dollars.) The sender "butters you up" with compliments about your reputation and honesty (although they generally don't mention your name, since you are one of many random targets for the spam/letter.)

The sender traditionally says that they need a foreign bank account (i.e. in whatever country you reside - outside of the originating country), to transfer a large amount of money out of Nigeria (or wherever.) They ask permission to use your bank account, in exchange for promising you a percentage (e.g. 5% - millions of dollars) of the money transferred.

Sometimes, the story is about some random person who died in a plane crash, with a reference to a legitimate online news story listing the deceased people. Then, the sender suggests that you might be a relative, and thus eligible for a partial inheritance. There may be an implication of helping you to lie and falsely claim that next-of-kin status.

The Scam: They start asking you for fees for the bank wire transfer, for local bribes (e.g. "This country is so corrupt," etc), and so on. They may ask for a, "Good faith" deposit to make sure that you don't rip them off.

The perpetrators may also use the victim to launder fraudulent checks. This involves sending forged or altered checks, to be deposited into your bank account, and then instructing you to wire transfer most of the funds to some overseas destination (while keeping a percentage for yourself.) Thus resulting in civil liability and even criminal prosecution against the victim, when the bogus checks are caught.

In extreme cases, people have been lured to traveling to Nigeria (or South Africa, or wherever), and have been extorted, kidnapped-for-ransom, and even just, "Disappeared."

These are listed by the names claimed to be the writers. There are other names in the emails, for contacts, and for the alleged dead people who left the alleged money.